The Legacy of the Bandung Conference

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By Norman (Otis) Richmond

It has been 55 years since so-called Third World nations from Asia and
Africa came together in Bandung, Indonesia to promote economic and
cultural cooperation and to oppose colonialism. History will record two
Bandung Conferences: In 2005,a conference marking the golden jubilee of
the first; and the one held in April 1955, at which 29 African and Asian
nations jomet.

Africans in North America paid close attention to this historic event.
In Toronto, Canada, Daniel Braithwaite's organization, which had a
relationship with the U.S.-based Council on African Affairs (CAA), sent
a message of support. Braithwaite was so impressed by CAA co-founder
Paul Robeson that he not only started a CAA chapter in Toronto, he also
named his own son Paul, currently a lawyer, in tribute to Robeson.
Other Africanists like W.E.B. DuBois, Alphaeus and Dorothy Hunton, along
with Robeson, were members of the Council on African Affairs.

The idea of the Bandung Conference came from Ahmed Sukarno of Indonesia.
It was conceived in Colombo, Indonesia, where the Colombo Powers:
India, Pakistan, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Burma (now Myanmar) and
Indonesia (the host country) met in April 1954. The Bandung Conference
led to the 1961 creation of the Non-Aligned Movement.

The first head of state to arrive at the 2005 Conference was former
South African President Thabo Mbeki. Ironically, South Africa, along
with Israel, Taiwan,and North and South Korea were all barred from the
1955 conference. In light of tragic events of 2005, Mbeki visited the
tsunami-stricken province of Aceh before he proceeded to the Conference.

I first heard about the Bandung Conference in the mid-1960s while
listening to a speech by El-Hajj Malik Shabazz (Malcolm X), titled
"Message to the Grassroots, which was first delivered at the King
Solomon Baptist Church in Detroit on November 10, 1963. Malcolm talked
about places and faces I had never heard of, however, he didn't get it
completely correct. There were White people at the Bandung conference.
Marshal Tito represented Yugoslavia, and there were American, Australian
and numerous members of the European press at the Conference. In fact,
African American journalist Ethel Payne, who was at Bandung, pointed
out, The British had sent just hordes of correspondents, and the Dutch
and the Germans and all the European countries."

At the time of the first Bandung Conference, the North American left, in
general, and the African American liberation movement, in particular,
were under attack. Senator Joseph McCarthy was looking for a "red under
every bed. Robeson, "the Tallest Tree in Our Forest," wanted to attend
the Conference but couldn't because the U.S. government had taken his
passport. Ditto for DuBois. However, several African American
politicians and journalists found themselves in Indonesia from April
18-25, 1955. Adam Clayton Powell Jr., Carl T. Rowan, Dr. Marguerite
Cartwright, journalist Payne and Richard Wright all were there.

Powell, the Congressman from Harlem, went to the Conference on a dare.
He wanted to attend the event to represent the interests of U.S.
imperialism by talking about the progress the Negro in America was
making. "It will mark the first time in history that the world's
non-White people have held such a gathering," he told reporters in
Washington, D.C., "and it could be the most important of this century."
Powell, no matter what we think of him, knew what time it was. His
appeals to President Dwight D. Eisenhower and others in the State
Department fell on deaf ears. The flamboyant Powell was told the U.S.
government saw no need to send an official observer to Bandung.
However, he got there compliments of the African American weekly
newspaper, New York Age-Defender.

Karl Evanzz pointed out in his brilliant book, The Judas Factor, "There
was at least one unofficial observer: at the request of John Foster
Dulles' brother, CIA Director Allen Dulles, a young African American
journalist named Carl T. Rowan covered the conference."
Rowan went on to become the Director of the United States Information
Agency. He also went on to alienate himself from a generation of
African Americans after the February 21, 1965 assassination of Malcolm
X. Rowan's statement after Malcolm's death was, "All this about an
ex-convict, ex-dope peddler who became a racial fanatic."

Of the two female African American journalists at the Conference, the
well-connected Dr. Cartwright represented a chain of White dailies and
the United Nations. The lesser-known Payne was the new kid on the block
and represented the Chicago Defender, which was part of John
Sengstacke's chain of Black weeklies.

Payne, who went on to be crowned "The First Lady of the Black Press,"
said she had little or no contact in Indonesia with Dr. Cartwright. Of
Cartwright, Payne said, "She had a desk at the U.N. and so she had quite
a lot of access that I didn't have." However, Payne did network with
writer Richard Wright, a one-time member of the Communist Party U.S.A.
After he had left the Party, Wright wrote the book, Color Curtain, about
The Bandung Conference.

Color Curtain was first published by University Press of Mississippi in
1956, and in it Wright wrote about the faces and places in 1955
Indonesia. In reading his book, one can feel him learning about what
would come to be called "The Third World.

The first Bandung Conference was attended by 21 Asian, 7 African and 1
Eastern European country. The second was attended by 54 Asian and 52
African nations. The Asian-African Conference has been transformed into
the Asia-Africa Summit. A recent re-reading of Robeson's Here I Stand
made me realize how important these two Conferences are to humanity. At
both, questions of world peace, South-South cooperation, nuclear weapons
and Palestine were discussed.

Toronto-based journalist and radio producer Norman (Otis) Richmond
a.k.a. Jalali,can be heard on Diasporic Music on Uhuru Radio, every
other Sunday from 2pm to 4pm on the net Uhuru News : Home He can be
reached by e-mail Norman.o.richmond@gmail.com

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